California Biographies
PETER M. MORGAN
Submitted by Thomas Brammer Jul 2010
This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm
Source: The History of Fresno County by Paul E Vandor, published in 1919.
PETER M. MORGAN. A veteran of the Civil War, and one whose personality no less than his enviable
official record has entitled him to the respect and best wishes of all who have been privileged to know
him, is Peter Morgan, who first came to California somewhat over a decade ago. He was born in Shelby
County, Ohio, on May 7, 1844, the son of a farmer, Monfort Morgan, also a native of that state, the
original family having been known as Monfort, and coming from French descent. Grandfather Morgan
belonged to the Welsh family of Morgans that located in the Province of Jersey in the seventeenth
century: and he was in the Revolutionary War While in Ohio, Peter's father married Rebecca Mulford, a
native of that State; and there the mother died. The father migrated to Kansas, went back to Ohio,
returned to Kansas and died there. Eleven children bore the honored name; and there was also a half-
brother. Aaron Morgan, who enlisted in the Civil War and served in the same regiment and company as
did the subject of our sketch. The eldest child of this union, Peter attended the public schools, grew up
and enlisted in the Union Army, in August, 1862. becoming a volunteer in Company I, 118th Ohio
Volunteers, that was mustered in at Lima, Ohio, as a part of the Army of the Ohio. For the first ten months
he was placed on guard duty on the Kentucky Central Railway, and then he was with Burnside in his
campaigning in eastern Tennessee. He took part in the Siege of Knoxville and the fighting at Mossy Creek.
Sweetwater, Loudon and Kingston, and on May 7, 1864, joined Sherman on his memorable Atlanta
campaign, seeing service at Buzzard's Roost, Red Clay Station, Roccaca, Peach Tree, Ottawa River,
Kennesaw Mountain, and Snake Creek Gap. He assisted at the Siege of Atlanta, and was at Lovejoy station
under Thomas, getting into the battles of Spring Hill, Franklin and Nashville. Later he was transferred, via
Washington, and Alexandria, Va., to Smithville. N. C, and he saw the taking of Fort Anderson, Fort Wilmington
and Fort Goldsborough. Fie marched to Salisbury. N. C, and did guard duty until June 28, 1855, when he was
transferred to the head of Chesapeake Bay, and then brought on to Cleveland. In July, 1865. after having
seen a great deal of the roughest service, yet never being wounded, he was mustered out and honorably
discharged.
On returning home, Mr. Morgan farmed for a year, during which he worked at shoemaking while awaiting
the prospective crop. The crop failed, and he continued at his last in Ohio. In 1868, at Spring Hill, in that
State, he married Miss Mary Catherine Mathis, a native of the Buckeye State and the daughter of Allen Mathis,
a farmer there, and then he moved to Kansas. The same year he located in what is now Harvey County, near
Sedgwick, where he homesteaded 160 acres, which he improved and farmed and sold to his father. He then
engaged in the hardware business in Sedgwick City, but when the grasshoppers and the panic of 1873 and
1874 came, he went out of business. He next became a carpenter and builder, and for three years he was the
manager of a lumber yard. In 1889, he opened a lumber yard, hardware and furniture store at Edmond, Okla.,
but a month later he located at Newton, Kans., where, for a year, he was the manager of a lumber yard. After
that he was in the employ of the Santa Fe Railroad, working first as carpenter and then as foreman in their
bridge and building department. Not having proved up on the homestead, he was entitled to another try; and
in 1891, when Kiowa and Comanche, Okla., were opened, he drew a number which gave him a new homestead
fourteen miles north of Anadarko. Beginning with March, 1902, he located on it and improved it; and in 1905
he sold his claim.
The following year was memorable in his experience, for he came to California and found it, from the first, a
promised land. He then bought the vineyard he has, a fine tract of forty acres in the Garfield District, only
fourteen acres of which were at that time set out to vines ; but with the aid of his son, H. C. Morgan, he planted
the remaining section. They were at Newton, Kans., in 1890, Mrs. Morgan died, the beloved mother of four
children: Iza became Mrs. Frank W. Johnson, and died in California, the mother of a girl, Blanche: and Harry C.
is a Viticulturist and, as a man of affairs, is associated with his father in the management of the ranch; Claude D.
is in Carthage, Mo., where he has married Miss Aletha Ferguson; Hattie D. died in Kansas. Mr. Morgan has
frequently proven a leader among his fellowmen. He was Justice of the Peace at Sedgwick City, when the country
was new and wild, in the stormy days of Kansas, and frequently had cases to keep him busy for days ahead. He
was a councilman at the same city, and also served as Mayor and as school trustee. In politics, he has become a
Progressive Republican. Always interested in the welfare of the Civil War veterans, Mr. Morgan is a member of
Atlanta Post. G. A. R., at Fresno, and has been Post Commander. He is a member of the San Joaquin Valley Veterans
Association, and in 1916 was Commander and presided at the annual meeting in Clovis in that year. He is identified
with the Unitarian Church at Fresno. He was made a Mason in Stokes Lodge, No. 205, Port Jefferson. Ohio, and
then helped organize the lodge at Sedgwick City, Kans., where he was a Past Master. Finally, he was transferred to
Newton Lodge, No. 142, and still retains his membership there. He also belongs to the Modern Woodmen, at
Carthage, Mo.
Notes:
Name: Peter Milton Morgan
Birth: May 9, 1844, Port Jefferson, Shelby County, Ohio, USA
Death: Jul. 15, 1924, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, USA
Burial: Liberty Veterans Cemetery, Fresno, Fresno County, California, USA